


A Strange Sense of Home

by tryslora



Series: All Our Yesterdays [16]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Community: fullmoon_ficlet, Confessions, Divorce, F/M, M/M, Nervous, Pack Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 20:49:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home is where the secrets are, at least according to Isaac. With Stiles telling things that happened sixteen years ago, it doesn’t seem all that farfetched a way of putting things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Strange Sense of Home

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really sorry I'm not posting this until now, because I wrote it a week ago. I just haven't had time this week. ANYWAY, this was written for prompt #39 - Nervous at fullmoon_ficlet. As always, I do not own the world or characters of Teen Wolf, but I do like to play with them.

Scott sends Caleb outside with Nikki and three of the four little girls and quiet orders to keep them well occupied. The toddler is settled with a nap, while Isaac cradles the infant in his arms. By now, Jackson knows which kids belong to which wolves; the two oldest girls are Derek’s, as is the infant. The toddler belongs to Isaac, who hasn’t made any mention of the mother.

Their pack never has done well with communication.

“We need to talk about sixteen years ago,” Stiles says quietly. He’s pacing, hasn’t been sitting for the last half hour of the meeting while they went over what little they know about this latest attack. “There are things…”

Scott looks over at him. “We know you tried to stop the beacon, Stiles,” he says simply. “It wasn’t hard to figure out when we thought about lightning, and the way all the trouble just _stopped_ then. Deaton and Derek and I talked, and the thing we couldn’t figure out was how you and Lydia thought you’d _survive_.”

“There wasn’t supposed to be lightning involved.”

There’s a skip in Stiles’s heartbeat, a sudden sharp, swift nervous scent. Derek growls, and Scott sighs. Jackson moves between Stiles and Athene when he spots her claws. “You can’t lie to the pack,” Jackson reminds him, as if Stiles doesn’t _know_ that.

“I’m not lying,” Stiles protests. “There _wasn’t_ supposed to be lightning. It was supposed to be _safe_. Do you think we would’ve taken Nik with us if we thought that would happen?”

Jackson grips Stiles’s hand, lifts it to his face and inhales: sour, damp, a clear sign of nerves. “Try again.”

Stiles yanks his hand back, steps away. “There was a _risk_ , yes. Lydia and I talked about it, and we thought it was minimal. Honest, we _never_ thought lightning would enter into it. Afterwards… I think it was power. The amount of power that we called pulled it down. But it _worked_. It struck the Nemeton, it stopped the beacon. And Lydia got what she wanted. Nik got to grow up normal.”

Stiles’s hands are shaking as he gestures, his breath uneven in his lungs. “We didn’t expect it to work like that. We… we didn’t want anyone to die, obviously. We just… we wanted to make things right, finally. Lydia wanted to bring Nikki up in a world where no one was screaming. Where there weren’t animal attacks, and no one died. Yeah, we’re still a pack, and her best friend is a werewolf, but… we thought we could make it better. We knew one of us had to be part of it.” His hand circles between himself, Allison and Scott. “We thought I was the best choice, and she… she had that link with death. We thought it would work.”

His breath hitches, rasps in his throat. Jackson wants to reach out, but he knows they aren’t _there_ yet. Not in front of everyone in the pack.

“This is not what I was expecting out of today’s meeting,” Isaac says idly from the side. “Did Derek tell you about the secrets, Athene? Because this is finally starting to sound like home.”

“Isaac.” Cora nudges his shoulder, and he goes silent.

“You’re not going to do it again,” Scott says quietly. “I mean it. I know what you’re thinking, that it worked once, but it _killed_ Lydia. And it didn’t do anything good for you or Nik, not to mention the effect on Jackson. If the beacon’s doing its thing again, then we’re going to deal with it.”

“We’re too small for it,” Stiles points out.

“That’s why we have alliances.”

Jackson glances at Derek and Athene, at Cora and Lance. He tries to read the body language and understand everything that he thinks he’s missing in the interpersonal relationships, and how things work with so many alphas in one place. Especially when Scott doesn’t live with the rest of the pack, keeping his normal human-like life with his wife and son.

He can’t figure it out on his own, not without asking.

The tension is bleeding into him, too, and he takes a step towards Stiles. He does it again when Stiles doesn’t move and ends up shoulder to shoulder, leaning slightly towards his ex-husband. He can feel the brush of Stiles’s fingertips as they move nervously, tapping against his thigh. Jackson catches his hand to stop him, squeezing lightly until Stiles goes still.

“Cora, Isaac, you’ll go out tonight,” Derek tells them. “I’ll go with Scott in the morning, and Athene and Lance will take daytime while everyone else is at work. When we know what’s come into our territory, then we’ll make a plan.”

Isaac gives the infant to Derek after a murmured conversation, their heads bent close, Derek’s fingers brushing against Isaac’s forearm. When Derek realizes Jackson is watching, he gives him a sharp grin. “I didn’t forget about you. You and Stiles deal with Nikki. She needs to learn control, and it needs to be faster than Lydia managed. You’ll all remember that when the beacon starts calling the strange things in, it only gets worse from here.”

“As soon as the kids get back, we’re going to the graveyard,” Jackson murmurs to Stiles. “You are going to explain this to Nikki. We can’t go forward with it still a secret.”

“ _We_ aren’t going forward,” Stiles mutters.

“The _pack_ is,” Jackson says. “And it seems like I’ve been accepted back in. I’m not going anywhere this time. There’s a lot to fix, and it’s going to take time, and _someone_ has to stick around to keep you out of trouble long enough to do it.”

For a moment he thinks Stiles is going to argue again, but he finally just nods once sharply. “Scott, let Caleb know it’s time to bring the kids back in. We need to take Nikki somewhere.”

It was always easier to deal with things in crisis mode. Jackson just hopes they can get to a point where it doesn’t have to be a crisis for them to work together.


End file.
